Fun around the town

On Thursday, December 27, we met the Woytowich's for an evening at the Paulenar, a German restaurant. We toasted to our new life in Chongqing together. We enjoyed BEER, soft pretzels, cheese sticks, sausage, sauerkraut, and the SUPER DOG! 

We ordered two super dogs for the kids (Jake, Casey and Claire) innocently thinking it was a footlong hot dog. After waiting 45 minutes the SUPER DOG arrived....

It was TWO large bratwursts inside a full-sized baguette topped with ketchup, mustard, pickles, cucumbers, and kraut. We all had a good laugh and learned a valuable lesson: one super dog can feed an army!

On Friday, December 28 we toured with school with the Woytowich's. Claire, Casey and Jake enjoyed seeing their classrooms and felt comfortable at their new school. The school is called: Yew Chung International School (YCIS). There are 240 students in the school (grades Preschool-12th grade). Each classroom has an English speaking teacher and a Chinese teacher. Our kids will go to school with students from all around the world. After the tour we picked up their uniforms and went over details for the first day of school. On Tuesday, January 8 the bus will pick up Jake and Casey from our apartment complex. I was happy to hear I can ride with them on the first day and get them situated in their classrooms. I may need that extra security more than they will. We were told they will be "buddied up" with another child from their classroom and that buddy will show them the ropes of the school. The school day is 8a.m-3:30p.m., Monday-Friday. Starting in February there are after school activities on Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays and Fridays after school we can sign them up for instrument lessons.  I'm looking forward to all the new opportunities coming their way. 

After we finished at YCIS we drove 5 minutes to Alpha Bakery, a cute place that was recommended to us by the other Ford families already here. The atmosphere was welcoming and the sandwiches were excellent. The kids especially liked the hot chocolate. 

Chris with Paul and Alison Woytowich.

Meet Our Driver

This is our driver, Mr. Xiong. He is a very gentle and kind hearted man. We found out that he has a wife and a 12 year old son. He's been taking good care of and our transportation needs getting us to and from the hotel. He also helped us at Metro (like a Costco) to fill out an application for a membership. He speaks very little English (good morning, hello, goodbye, okay, etc..) so communication has been challenging, but not impossible. He's very patient and helpful trying to teach us new words. In Chongqing the locals speak "Chongqinghua", a slightly different dialect than Mandarin. We are fortunate that Mr. Xiong also understands Mandarin, the language that we are learning in our audio lessons. He can understand us when we try to talk to him in Mandarin and gives us a "thumbs up" when we say something correctly. We are also using an app called Google Translate on our phones which comes in handy during all the right times.

We Have Arrived

We landed in Chongqing (CQ) around 11:30am on Christmas Eve. After 42 hours of continuous travel we were exhausted, dirty, hungry and ready to get to our hotel. At the airport we were greeted by our new driver, Mr. Xiang (pronounced: Mr. Shiong). He was very welcoming with a big bright smile. He speaks very little English (basic words like: hello, goodbye, thank you, etc..). He's teaching us some Mandarin and we have been teaching him English. We use Google Translate app on our phones to try and communicate with him.

Mr. Xiang brought an additional driver and car with him to get our baggage to the hotel. It was a short 30 minute drive to the JW Marriott in the downtown of the city. This will be our temporary home for the next 10 days. We have 2 adjoining rooms and a lot of space to spread out. After our showers the plan was to take a 2 hour nap and then go out for Christmas Eve dinner with other Ford families, but our bodies were telling us it was time for a full night's sleep. Jake and Casey were not able to wake up from their slumber, we cancelled out plans for dinner out and instead changed plans and stayed at the hotel. Later in the evening we woke up the kids and we all went to the top floor of the hotel for a fancy Christmas Eve dinner. Ten minutes into our meal Jake and Casey were fast asleep at the table and missed Christmas Eve dinner. Chris and I enjoyed a quiet meal together and afterwards carried our sleeping lambs to our room and snuggled them into bed. 

The next morning was Christmas Day. Jake was wide awake at 3:45am. While Casey and Chris slept, Jake and I played cards in the bathroom. At 5am Casey and Chris were up and our day was started. Jake and Casey were thrilled to see that Santa found us at the hotel and left a small group of presents for them. We shared a cozy Christmas together playing with the kids new gadgets. For the rest of the day we relaxed in the hotel room and video chatted with family back in Wisconsin. Later in the day we met up with Paul & Alison Woytowich and their 6 yr old daughter Claire. They are another Ford family that arrived in CQ two days before us. We had lunch with them at a TexMex restaurant and walked around the city afterwards. We were all in bed before 8pm that night trying to catch up on our sleep. 

For the next couple of days we all struggled with jet lag by waking up at 3:30am and then crashing in the early afternoon. Casey had also been struggling with a cough and runny nose that kept waking her up at night. One morning while Chris was in a phone meeting, I took the kids swimming at the hotel pool on the 10th floor. The first 20 minutes were fun but soon after Casey got some water up her nose and that caused an instead headache. Combine that with the coughing she's been struggling with and it turned into a crying fit that she couldn't shake out of. This all resulted in her puking on the pool deck and me trying to wipe it up with the pool towels. I did the best I could to explain to the pool staff what had happened and that we were very sorry. We scooted out of there as quick as we could and back to our room for showers and rest. 

And we're off.....

On Friday, December 21 at around 5:30pm we left our house in Sterling Heights, Michigan and were on our way to our new home for the next 27 months in Chongqing, China. The week prior to leaving was a intense time in our lives as we sorted and organized our belongings and divided them into Sea, Air shipments. What didn't get sent in shipments was packed up in 13 pieces of luggage which we'll live out of for the first 8-12 weeks. We stayed the night at the Westin Detroit Airport hotel the night before our departure. Our good friend Ryan Fogelberg (another Ford employee) was kind enough to bring over his Expedition and loaded up our bags and followed us to the airport.

The bell boys at the hotel were quite surprised to see our massive collection of luggage and quickly asked where we going. After hearing that we are moving to China they wished us all the best on our adventure. We squeezed into our hotel room on Friday night surrounded by our luggage and enjoyed our last meal in the States (until the summer) by ordering room service. We were too tired and it was too late to go to a restaurant. We all took showers the night before. Casey and Jake even tried out the hotel robe. By 10pm we were all fast asleep dreaming of what was to come the next day.

Our first flight was from Detroit to Chicago. It departed at 7:45am. With it being a holiday weekend it was important for us to arrive very early to check-in. Also, we had so much luggage in tow that it was going to take a while to load it all up in a shuttle and then unload it and get it to the ticketing area. We left the hotel at 5am and by 6am we were all checked in,  through security and enjoying a breakfast near our gate. The flight was a simple 1 hour hop over Lake Michigan and we arrived in Chicago on-time. We had a 2.5 hour layover until our next flight so we checked in at the Admirals Club (executive lounge) waiting until it was time to go. About 45 minutes before our flight left we headed to the gate and immediately received an announcement that our plane had a complication and the flight was canceled. Another plane will be leaving at 8pm to Shanghai. Back to the Admiral's Club to get our tickets adjusted and also this meant that we would not make our connection in Shanghai. Instead we will arrive in Shanghai and 1am and will have to wait until 9am until the next flight to Chongqing. Mentally we prepared ourselves for a looonnnngg couple of days, too huge layovers and not any closer to our destination any time soon.

During the 9.5 hour delay in Chicago we setup our temporary home in the Club and played many games of war with the kids, caught up on emails/facebook/etc and explored the O'hare airport. It was a long wait but we managed fairly well. Before we knew it it was time to board the plane and our next stop was Shanghai, China. With it being a 14 hour long flight, Ford provided business class seats and the kids took the opportunity to check out every gadget. They loved having their own TVs, remotes to adjust their chairs, access to the windows and of course the tray tables (there were two of them). We were officially on our way to China and would arrive 14 hours later. The flight went well and we all slept for 6-7 hours. The kids (and Mommy and Daddy too) enjoyed access to as many movies and games as they wanted. The flight attendants were very nice and thought it was neat that we were moving to China. They told us the Chinese are very nice people and we would enjoy our experience.

At 1am (local time) we landed in Shanghai airport. We easily got through customs and were headed towards baggage claim. Our luggage needed to be re-checked for our flight to Chongqing. One bonus about China was that they use push carts for moving their luggage and this worked in our favor and we each grabbed a cart and loaded it up with 3-4 pieces each. Since we arrived "in the middle of the night" we could not recheck our luggage until 7am (2 hours before our flight left). This meant we were stuck in the main terminal for the next 6 hours. There was a small handful (about 50 or so) of other passengers spending the night in the airport like us. Jake and Chris played some football in the open space, the kids watched a movie and also rested for an hour. Chris and I tried to relax the best we could but it was not an ideal situation to get much rest. There was 1 small convenience store open where we purchased some drinks and snacks.

As the morning approached many travelers started entering the terminal and our day was about to get started. Before checking in our luggage we stopped at a cafe for muffins, smoothies and coffee. During this time we had access to wifi and were able to Facetime and Skype with family back in Wisconsin. They were very happy to see us. Checking in our luggage was challenging and took 45 minutes, Air China didn't seem to know how to handle our caravan. Eventually it all worked out and we were soon on our FINAL flight to our new home: Chongqing.